Angela Wilson, MA, RYT

Angela is a faculty member for Kripalu Healthy Living programs and Project Leader for the Institute for Extraordinary Living’s Front-Line Providers program, supporting health-care workers to find balance through the practice of yoga. Angela holds a master’s degree in mental-health counseling from Lesley University and has contributed to Yoga International and Yoga Therapy Today, writing about the intersection between yoga, Western psychology, and science.

Over the last decade, there has been a growing amount of research on the benefits of yoga. Studies on yoga’s impact on cancer, pregnancy, depression, and anxiety—to name just a few—have allowed yoga to move from the periphery of health care toward increased respect from scientists, mental-health clinicians, and medical practitioners. Yet, to date, the […]

Not long ago, a student asked me, “What do you think has been the most healing experience of your yoga practice?” The question gave me pause. My mind started scrolling through a list of my favorite practices. Was it nadi shodhana? Asana? Meditation? My experience of Ayurveda? Slightly stumped, I replied that it was probably […]

While many people turn to yoga to reduce stress, an equal number go to yoga class in order to experience a greater sense of connection—with themselves and with each other. We come in to class feeling separate, disconnected, even resentful (Why did she put her mat so close to mine?). We leave smiling, warmed by […]

“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.” ―Thich Nhat Hạnh, Stepping into Freedom: Rules of Monastic Practice for Novices Yogic breathing is a fundamental practice in the study of yoga. As one of the limbs of Patanjali’s eight-limbed path, yogic breathing, or pranayama, is defined as the […]

High blood pressure, or hypertension, affects one in three Americans. Known as the “silent killer” because its symptoms often go undetected for years, high blood pressure is correlated with numerous health conditions, including heart attack, stroke, and metabolic syndrome. Typically, the go-to solution is medication, but meds for high blood pressure often come with negative […]

One increasingly popular form of meditation is loving-kindness meditation (LKM), the practice of wishing one’s self and others to be happy, content, and at ease. In the yoga tradition, loving-kindness is seen as an opportunity to “cultivate the opposite.” Where many meditation techniques encourage students to explore difficult feelings or emotions directly, in loving-kindness, the […]

One of the most well-known and utilized tools in meditation and yoga is the practice of self-observation without judgment, or mindfulness. Swami Kripalu called self-observation without judgment “the highest form of spiritual practice.” Likewise, if you go to any yoga or meditation class you‘re likely to hear words like mindfulness and nonjudgmental awareness repeated throughout […]

In 1998, researcher Barbara Fredrickson published a paper called “What good are positive emotions?” The paper discussed, in detail, the importance of positive emotions on cognition, action, and interpersonal relationships. While at the time it was arguably a risky scientific article, it turned out to be pivotal. Prior to this, most research focused almost exclusively […]